December marked a new beginning for SolSta Records.
Phil and Hannah Borreson, the husband-and-wife team that owns the business, packed up their popular south Minneapolis shop and moved to their new location on Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park.
"Moving had been in the plan for a couple of years," Phil said. "We had everything ready to go a couple of years ago. It was about finding the right space."
2020 certainly was not a year most businesses could have planned for or anticipated as COVID-19 left no industry untouched.
"Every week gets a little different between different restrictions and shopping habits," Phil said. "We've changed from a store where someone comes through and digs through records to a place where you mostly shop our online inventory."
Fortunately, the online surge was something SolSta Records was prepared for.
"I feel like we prepared because we envisioned that website and launched in 2018," Hannah Borreson said. "In the beginning of the pandemic it was really tough because no one really knew what they wanted to do. People wanted to go shopping and support local, small businesses. As it went on, people got more comfortable and realizing how they could shop our store online."
The ability to see and learn about different records is part of what draws the public in to record stores like SolSta Records. That ability for the most part has been replicated to their online store.
"All the information that you would normally see when you look at a record in the store is there on the website. You don't have to do a lot of guesswork," said Phil.
While the online shopping surge at SolSta Records has been used primarily by a younger crowd, there's still the opportunity for older generations to find that classic vinyl to add to or restart their collection.
"An older audience isn't necessarily interested if they can't see it in front of them," said Phil. "Since we opened our store in St. Louis Park, we've seen an uptick of more older people coming through just wanting to see it."
Aside from running a record store, the Borreson's operate the SolSta Records recording label. The label allows musicians to release music and right now, the label is focused on recording and releasing music through the Live from the Record Room series.
"We weren't able to do much with the label this year," Phil said. "You don't know what's going to happen next so investing money in that really wasn't the priority. It was making sure the online service we provide was there for everybody in a way that worked."
With now over 2,000 square feet in their St. Louis Park store, there's more of an opportunity to tie-in music production with the store.
Coming up in January, SolSta Records is partnering with Music in Minnesota for a special live, socially distanced, performance.
"We're going to have the band and there's only going to be a couple of socially-distanced people here," Phil said. "The whole point is to film it with an empty space. It will really show the impact of what 2020 has done to the music industry."
